Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, 10 of October , 2007 at 9:42 am Comments (1)
Yesterday, we discussed our latest blog in the Brick Marketing family, Email Marketing Journal. That’s take the Brick Marketing family blogs to five. OK, make that six.
Yes, we’ve added another blog, which we started posting to October 6, 2007: Online Publicity Journal.
Online Publicity Journal will cover all the ways you can use press releases and other content to influence the media in covering your story. We’ll cover how to write press releases, how to attract media attention, strategies for creating a buzz, getting sales from your online publicity efforts, press release distribution, how to SEO a press release, and using RSS feeds for your online publicity.
So far we’ve posted to Online Publicity Journal three times and we’ll be adding our fourth post later today. Stop by and see our Welcome Page and continue reading!
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Tuesday, 9 of October , 2007 at 12:11 pm Comments (1)
The beginning of October saw the beginning of something new with Brick Marketing as well. As you know, we started with this blog, Search Engine Optimization Journal, last year. Then we began introducing others earlier this year. So far we’ve launched
Then, on October 1, 2007, we kicked off the Email Marketing Journal. Topics we’ll be discussing on the daily postings of Email Marketing Journal include:
- Email Content
- Email Design Issues
- Email Marketing
- Email Marketing Basics
- Email Newsletters
- List Rental
- Spam
- Open and Click-Through Rates
- Opt-In Techniques
- Subject Lines
Brick Marketing may add categories in the future as we get feedback from the readers of Email Marketing Journal. Let us know how we do with our new blog and we’re looking forward to rolling out new blogs in the Brick Marketing family in the weeks to come.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Tuesday, 9 of October , 2007 at 8:44 am Leave a comment
This question pops up often: Which is better, SEO or Social Marketing?
Well, I say, define better.
It is hard to imagine doing any kind of Internet marketing without SEO. The Web, essentially, has been built on it. In 1995, it wasn’t called SEO, but people were building websites and getting them indexed according to keywords on their web pages and meta tags. From there, the developments came and eventually Google introduced link quality and relevance. SEO is free and relatively easy to understand, though it is hard work. I wouldn’t ignore it.
But don’t think that just because SEO is the natural platform for the Internet that social marketing isn’t necessary. In the same way that the Web was built on SEO, it was also built on social media. What I mean is, the Internet is intrinsically social. It always has been.
Websites don’t exist in a vacuum. There have always been communities online where people could gather, communicate, and get to know each other. The specific media have changed over time. But it’s always been available. Forums, for instance, have been around for a long time - forever and day, it seems. Online Web communities like Geocities and Angelfire allowed people to build free websites and network through those communities. Today, people do virtually the same thing through social sites like MySpace and Facebook.
So I would say build your Internet marketing plan around both of these necessities. Just as you cannot market your business online with SEO, you can’t market yourself without social marketing either. You need both to truly succeed.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Monday, 8 of October , 2007 at 7:46 pm Comments (2)
NameCritic over at SEO Service Provider decided to test Google Page Creator to see if he could build a one-page website around the keyword phrase “Content Provider” and see how long it takes to index and to see whether it would rank for that key phrase. Interesting experiment.
In a second post today he announced that he had his Google Page Creator page indexed within 2 hours. That’s pretty impressive.
I linked to the first blog post using the keyword anchor text “Content Provider.” I don’t want to link to the actual page at Google Page Creator because that would defeat the purpose for the experiment since NameCritic is trying to see how well he ranks using on-page SEO. I’m anxious to see it myself. If you want to participate in the experiment then pass on the message to your readers and trackback to NameCritic’s post as well as to me to keep us informed of your participation.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Monday, 8 of October , 2007 at 8:32 am Comments (3)
(Source) Last week, I noticed the Stanford Daily had dropped from when I wrote the above in April to PR7 today. That’s a huge drop that has no apparent reason to happen. Some others were also reporting PageRank drops. So I pinged Google, and they confirmed that PageRank scores are being lowered for some sites that sell links.
In addition, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached, to prevent them from ranking well.
This is rather odd. If Google is no longer relying on PageRank then why would they penalize sites selling links with a drop in PageRank? This policy, pointed out by Danny Sullivan, is a change in policy for Google. In 2005, Matt Cutts went on the record for saying sites that sell links won’t be penalized with a decrease in PageRank, so this is a new development. I think this new policy is evidence that PageRank still is a useful measure of a site’s trustworthiness. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
Google scientists believe that paid links muddy the waters of trust because people naturally link to sites that they like and find trustworthy. But if someone is linking to a site because they were paid to when they would not have linked to that site otherwise then this screws with Google’s natural linking algorithm. I’d have to agree. But I don’t necessarily agree with lowering a website’s PageRank because they sell links. What if some of those links are good links that are an indicator of trust and the linking site would link even if they weren’t being paid? I think there is a danger of penalizing sites that don’t deserve to be penalized.
This policy, if rolled out entirely (right now, the penalties are carefully selected and don’t affect every site on the Internet) across the Web, would affect smaller businesses the most. What if there is a local business directory that sells links to local businesses? Should that directory be penalized if the selling of those links is its business? I don’t think so.
Google can do whatever it wants with its algorithms, but this is one that I’m not on board with. But I will say you are better off buying links to get the traffic than you are buying links to get the PageRank.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, 7 of October , 2007 at 6:31 pm Leave a comment
One often overlooked form of Internet advertising is affiliate marketing. Yet, affiliate marketing often provides the highest return on investment of any of the Internet marketing methods available. Your affiliates are out there working for you 24 hours a day, 365 days a week. They bring in the customers and you don’t have to pay them for their efforts until you close the sale. How beautiful is that?!
Brick Marketing offers a variety of affiliate marketing program set up and consulting packages. You can choose the right one for you. Prices range from $45 per hour to $899 per month. Some flat rate packages are also available. The services provided our affiliate marketing packages include:
- Affiliate Program Development and Enhancement for existing affiliate or new program launches
- Affiliate Program creation and management, launching and maintaining accounts
hosted or on an affiliate network
- Creation and Initiation of affiliate program terms, sign-up forms, affiliate creatives, promotions, etc.
- Affiliate Program creation and management, launching and maintaining accounts that are hosted or on an affiliate network. Some of the networks we have managed and launched: Commission Junction, Linkshare, My Affiliate Program, LinkConnector, Share Results, ClickXchange and many more
- Affiliate Ongoing Promotion Management
- Super Affiliate Recruitment
- Monthly Affiliate Program Reporting
When it comes to your Internet marketing plan, don’t skimp. Affiliates have been known to bring in thousands of dollars for their customers and you can set up an affiliate marketing program that is productive, profitable, and easy to manage. Brick Marketing can help.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, 7 of October , 2007 at 8:19 am Comments (2)
I loved this article by Jill Whalen at Search Engine Land:
Sometimes I think SEOs have lost the plot. Not all SEOs, mind you, but many, especially the newbies. It’s like they don’t understand the reason for doing the SEO things that they know they need to do. I think many walk around with a checklist of SEO-type duties and set off to do them, yet they have no clue as to why.
Yes, I often feel that way about my colleagues as well.
But without knowing the ultimate reason for doing the things they do, they don’t get it done correctly. You don’t create titles for titles’ sake. You don’t get links for links’ sake. Everything that we teach people to do in SEO has a purpose, and that purpose is not to make the search engines think our site is better than it is. The purpose is to actually make the site better than it is.
Amen, sister!
This is often forgotten by the SEO community. A lot of the new SEOs entering the market seem to think that if they just put that keyword in the right place then all will be fine. Make this word a link and Google will love me. It’s really more about what you shouldn’t do than what you should. I mean, there is a lot of room for maneuver in the SEO realm and sometimes there is no right answer; just a bunch of wrong ones. SEO is about being creative and many times you can be effective just with the content on your page.
I can just see the Google engineers now: “So how about we make the last word on the page be the most important factor in determining the relevancy of the page. Yeah, that’s the ticket!”
Everyone would soon be placing keyword phrases as the last words on their page. Except they would be doing it only because somebody told them to. Even though it defied all reason as to why it should boost rankings. The average SEO wouldn’t have the wherewithal to test it to know for sure that it worked. They would simply do it because others said it worked. Certainly, if it actually were a factor then it would help to boost rankings, and more and more people would jump on the bandwagon, because they would assume that those words at the end of the page were the crowning glory.
Is this the way you see SEO? “If I can just jump through enough hoops then I’ll be the SEO king.”
Keyword in title tag, h2 and h3 tags all over the place, bold text here, italics there, bulleted list, anchor text (oh, I need that three times - once for all three of my key phrases) …
Does that sound like you? If so, then you might be need to take a step back and ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish with your website because if your goal is to please Google then you may be doing it for the wrong reason.
Of course, Google engineers would never have that conversation, nor would they ever make the last words on the page a huge factor in determining relevancy. Why? Because it doesn’t make any sense. Relevancy formulas are not based on whims (although it’s sometimes hard to tell when looking at Yahoo results!). Algorithms are determined by what the average person who knows nothing about SEO would naturally do on their website when putting it together.
This is the essence of SEO. What comes naturally?
As an SEO, my job is not to second guess Google, but to second guess you. Customers often come to me with a little background knowledge about what makes good SEO. They don’t come because they want someone who knows more than they do; they come because they haven’t achieved the rankings that they expect based on what they have learned and they think that I, as an SEO professional, can work some kind of miracle for them. Let’s be honest. There are no miracles in SEO. No accidents. Just clear, honest thinking; or, in some cases, muddy thinking that goes astray.
SEO was not invented. It was not some development in a vacuum. It was a natural migration for the entire global Internet community based on natural human behavior. That’s why semantic search is such a popular topic today. There are so many people trying to game the system that real SEO must take place in a dance hall. Instead of working with your partner, the SEO has to push his partner to follow him. That’s not real dancing.
SEO is all about using certain tools that are available to increase your chances of getting ranked for your key terms. There are no guarantees. Many, many factors, some of them controllable, influence the rankings. Things like what your competitors are doing. And you can’t control that. You can study it. You can imitate it. You can mock it and write about it on your blog, but your competitors control their site and you control yours. Now let’s get down to the brass tacks of SEO.
Joe doesn’t have to know SEO to do a great job with his harmonica cleaning. Nor should he have to. In fact, if he did know SEO (or thought he did), he might go messing up a good thing.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Many website owners might actually get better results without SEO. We study and learn SEO so we can make our websites better, not so we can fool the search engines into thinking we are worthy of their attention. And that’s where many site owners go wrong. They’re in it for the wrong reasons.
It’s not a bad thing to think about SEO when designing your site. In fact, it’s a great thing. But only if you use your brain and your common sense at the same time. Always think about the reasons why you’re doing what you’re doing. When you do that, you’ll find it much easier to know exactly what to put on your site and where to put it.
I couldn’t have put it better myself. My job is not to show you some magic formula that will work in every situation. My job is to help you do your job better. And when we both do our jobs well, good SEO takes place naturally.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Saturday, 6 of October , 2007 at 12:41 pm Comments (2)
Someone I respect likes to refer social bookmarking as another form of SEO. Another friend says it will eventually displace SEO. I think, personally, social media - and not just bookmarking, but all social media - is a form of Internet marketing that is outside of the realm of SEO, but that has some SEO benefits.
What I mean is, you can build a nice solid link building campaign through social networking, bookmarking, and other social media. But that’s not its primary purpose nor is it the primary benefit. Social bookmarking is better utilized as a traffic tool. Sure, you can increase your link popularity and search engine positioning by adding a lot of links to your portfolio, but if you don’t have really useful social content then all you have are links.
Just like the on-page content for your website, social content has to be valuable and unique. You can’t just throw out a bunch of garbage into the web universe and expect that earn you some respect. Remember, your name is attached to all of that. You are building your reputation. You want people to recognize you as someone who appreciates valuable content. So make sure that when you do bookmark certain items that you are bookmarking items that you truly find valuable and unique. In that way, as people come to rely on your bookmarks, they will recognize you as someone who can identify what valuable content looks like. You’re more likely to get reliable traffic to your website that way.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Saturday, 6 of October , 2007 at 8:56 am Comments (2)
(Source) Local Search: Keyword-based and location-based. User provides a query and search engine matches documents to both the keyword and the location. To rank for “seattle green widgets,” develop great content and links about green widgets, and be located in Seattle. In theory and practice this is not simple, nor is it easy.
Here’s why: The addition of geography screws everything up. It complicates everything.
This is the first time I think I’ve read anyone succinctly state the challenge behind ranking a local business for local search. Yes, small businesses need help with SEO. But even a weakness in SEO can’t overcome the geography challenges. Another aspect of local search that is rarely looked at are the different needs of rural businesses to those located in a large urban area.
If your small dry cleaning business is located in a major metropolitan area then you’ll have a lot of competition even for local search terms. If you’re the only dry cleaning business in rural Kansas within a 10 mile radius then you’ll have a lot easier go of it, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have challenges.
Zip code searches, for instances, will fare better for rural businesses because of the dispersion of same type businesses in that setting. But type in a zip code in some major metro areas and you’re likely to get several thousand search results for that dry cleaner. You could live across the street from a dry cleaner and not see it in your search results because it doesn’t have a website or, if it does, no one has bothered submitting the website to Google Local or Yahoo! Local.
In major metro areas, the challenge of zip codes is that you could have several neighborhoods within the same zip code. In Dallas, Texas, for instance, if you type in zip code 75180 you will get listings for the city of Mesquite, but if you live in Balch Springs within the same zip code then that covers a huge driving distance.
The challenge for rural businesses is a bit different. Instead of neighborhoods, you might have a bunch of small towns and villages in the same zip code. Or you might have one town and a wide space of boondocks. How these challenges are overcome in local search is something that is not often talked about and the discussion can’t continue without valuable input from the people at the search engines who create the search algorithms. My hat’s off to Matt McGee for taking the conversation to another level.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Friday, 5 of October , 2007 at 12:48 pm Leave a comment
(Source) Lindsay would make one big infrastructure change to Yahoo, a “Back To The Future” style return to Google managing Yahoo’s search marketing endeavors. Yahoo has long lagged behind Google’s AdWords performance for paid search; Lindsay believes Yahoo will fare better as a Google partner than as a competitor.
This is an interesting concept. What would Yahoo! look like as a bunch of little companies? Better yet, how would a Yahoo! partnership with Google be structured and how would that affect the other players in the search marketing market?
Personally, I think such a partnership between the two leading search engines would lead to antitrust issues. Google already dominates and Yahoo! has the potential to remain competitive. I think spinning off the search marketing aspect of its business into a standalone entity might be a viable solution if Yahoo! has serious management issues. But Yahoo! seems to be on the move right now. Should they really make that many changes on the advent of Yang’s rise to prominence again?
I would not welcome a Yahoo!-Google partnership at all. I’m sure MSN, AOL, and Ask.com feel the same way. What about you? Do you think Google and Yahoo! should team up against everyone else?
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Friday, 5 of October , 2007 at 9:03 am Comments (2)
Search Engine Land recently asked the question, “Which Google Products Should a Small Business Use?” I liked their answer, but it seems incomplete. Here’s the list of services they suggest small business owners should use:
- Google Analytics
- Google Maps
- Local Business Center
- Google Base
- Google Website Optimizer
The list is incomplete because it leaves out the most important Google service of all: Google AdWords.
Of course, they may have left Google AdWords off the list on purpose. You can’t use Google Analytics unless you sign up for Google AdWords first. But just having a Google AdWords account doesn’t mean that you are using the product. Or maybe they left Google AdWords off the list because they believe that not every business owner can benefit from a pay-per-click campaign. That could be true. But most businesses, I believe, would do well to start a Google AdWords campaign to drive targeted traffic to their website.
Another use for Google AdWords is keyword research. If you run a business of any kind then you can use Google AdWords for your keyword research. It’s free so why wouldn’t you?
Suffice it to say, I’d add one more Google service to Search Engine Land’s list. Google AdWords.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, 4 of October , 2007 at 2:06 pm Leave a comment
Yesterday, I wrote a review of PR Web Direct Press Release Newswire. Well, today I’d like to talk about how NOT to use PR Web Direct Press Release Newswire.
Leave it to Marketing Pilgrim to find it. It really was a beautiful press release. It had all of the elements of an effective press release, though they decided to go the inexpensive route.
- Top 10 list
- Lies our competitors tell
- The lie that we don’t do as our competitors do
- You know, all the beauties
You’d think a PR firm would know better. But does BlinnPR include a link in their press release? Would you use a PR agency that sent out a press release like that? I wouldn’t.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, 4 of October , 2007 at 7:55 am Leave a comment
OK, this post has nothing to do with the Beatles, and I’m with Kalena Jordan on this one:
Listen up Jeff:
1) There is absolutely no value in swapping links with a site that has zero in common with your own. Be sensible: why would the site visitors of an online training institution want to visit a dehumidifier manufacturer’s web site?
2) Reciprocal link swaps don’t really have any search engine benefit these days. It is much more beneficial to gain one-way incoming links so you don’t dilute your site’s link juice which can happen when linking out.
3) Demanding that we place a link to your site from our home page is unreasonable. Reciprocating with a link to us buried on some back page of an entirely different site is just plain rude!
4) Spamming people with link requests and then telling them they have to contact you to stop receiving them is NOT a good way to start a business relationship.
Yeah, I get those pesky e-mails too and I’m not impressed. Reciprocal links virtually have no value, especially from non-related websites. One-way links hold a lot more value. Now, say it with me:
“Put your right link in, put your right link out,
Put your right link in, and you shake it all about …”
And guess what? That’s what it’s all about!
I know, I’m being my weird self today, but you have to know what the right link is and it isn’t the reciprocal link from Uncle Joe’s Garage - unless, you run Aunt Mary’s Tune Up Shoppe. Your links must be relevant - hear that Jeff? - relevant! In other words, you need links from relevant sites - sites related to your in subject matter. You also need links that do the hokie pokie and turn themselves around. Trust me, they don’t come from spam e-mail.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, 3 of October , 2007 at 2:31 pm Comments (2)
Robert Scoble is dissing Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer in today’s WebProNews:
Don’t miss this quote. It’s demonstrates everything that is wrong with Microsoft’s approach:
“There can’t be any more deep technology in Facebook than what dozens of people could write in a couple of years. That’s for sure,” Ballmer said.
OK, I’m with Scoble on this one. Ballmer clearly doesn’t have a clue about social marketing. Facebook is the schiznit (did I spell that right?). And it doesn’t matter whether you think MSN has a clue about search. This isn’t about search. It’s about Microsoft’s inability to cash in on Web marketing. Sure, they’ve done OK, but they do own the third largest search engine - not the first, not the second, the third. Then one of their top execs comes out and compares Facebook with Geocities? Come on, that’s not even close.
It could be a generational thing. What is Ballmer, over 50 now? Too old to dance. Might throw a hip out. And if he logs on for too long on a social network he might scare all the young ladies into hanging out at the library instead. Come on, Steve. Geocities? If you had said Blogspot was like Geocities, that would have made sense. But Facebook? Do you even know what Facebook is?
Online Advertising vs. Social Marketing
There’s a huge difference between advertising and marketing. Advertising is paying money for space or time. Marketing is sharing, talking, communicating. It’s a back and forth. Advertising is a one-way street. That’s why Microsoft is still stuck in the past. That’s likely why Scoble isn’t there any more. Ballmer didn’t get blogging and he doesn’t get social marketing either. It looks like the only thing he does get is an oversized paycheck.
I encourage all my readers to join the conversation, or start one. What do you like about Facebook? How is it different than advertising? Should the search engines develop relationships with the social networking websites? If so, how?
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, 3 of October , 2007 at 7:52 am Comments (2)
If you aren’t aware of PR Web Direct Press Release Newswire you should be. This service is perhaps one of the most essential services for achieving high value publicity online that includes strong link building and brand awareness. One press release uploaded to PRWebDirect can be distributed online to best sources of publicity anywhere in the world, including Yahoo! News, Google News, PRWeb, Businesswire, and a variety of social bookmarking sites. This is the best place to go for instant online publicity, bar none.
The features you are allowed with each press release distributed through PRWebDirect are nothing like anything you’ve ever seen. There is no off line equivalent. In the old days, you’d write up a press release, fold it up into an envelope with a photo you took with your 35mm point and shoot camera and send it to several newspapers. Someone might or might not have read it and it probably ended up in File 13 or buried under the clutter on some editor’s desk. At PRWebDirect, though, there is no File 13 and no editor’s desk.
Without the filter of human eyes and limited space, almost every press release will see the light of day. You can pack your press release with links, add pull quotes, throw in a photo, podcast, or video to enhance the experience for journalists and lay people worldwide, and even your contact information. It’s all right there in plain view for all the world to see.
If you’ve never used multimedia press releases to increase your brand awareness and online publicity efforts then I suggest you start now. PR Web Direct Press Release Newswire packs a powerful whop!
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